Businesses across the world are embarking towards a digital data transformation. The transformation has really sped up during the last decade or two, and progress towards it has become even faster. Now we stand at an important moment in time, where digital technologies are massively influencing the way most customers interact with their brands. Considering this change in preferences and style of communication, it is now up to all businesses to realize the potential for development and what they need to know for being part of the wave towards the future. Businesses need to prepare themselves for the modern world of technology, and for that, they need to step into the digital world. A recent researchstudy by Gartner has revealed that almost all the businesses have started ranking digital business growth as one of their top 10 business objectives for the future.

What is causing this Disruption?

With business reconstructing their entire model to accommodate the need for digital change, one does think about what is causing this disruption.

The need for a digital change starts with data. Data has become the need of the hour, and to perfectly manage and extract it, organizations need to go where the customers are: digital. Data is being generated by customers on the digital world, and organizations are willing to incorporate this digital change, in a bid to get hold of this data. IoT devices are playing an important role in data generation. Most IoT devices, coupled with the smartphones using them, curate data that is of great importance for all organizations.

Customers are not the only ones generating this data. From smart city technologies such as connected cars, trains, and video surveillance, to businesses themselves, data is coming in at a rate of knots. The digital interactions that every business has with their customers is one of the major sources of data, and businesses often ponder over how they could use these data sources to reach meaningful insights that help them in real time.

Challenges Hindering Digital Transformation

The digital transformation process may be the need of the hour, but this doesn’t mean that it is absent of any challenges. The process is currently hindered by numerous challenges, and we will be talking about them briefly here.

Data: While data is leading the digital transformation, it also presents one of the biggest challenges to organizations looking to jump on the bandwagon. Data coming from multiple sources can create a hassle for an organization when it comes to extracting meaningful insights from this data. More than 60 percent of all data that is being extracted by organizations goes to waste, since it is unused by analytics. While initially the problem laid in the collection and storage of this data, but now the implication lays in how to get meaningful insights from all the data that you have collected.

Legacy Systems: Businesses that have legacy systems in place within their organization might find jumping to the digital transformation hard. Organizations, such as banks, have paper records more than 50 years old, so going digital for them isn’t going to be a walk in the park.

Data Security and Privacy: A data infrastructure can often be at risk from external attacks that may endanger the security and privacy of your data. The data you have is a collection of information related to your organization, your Business to Consumer (B2C) clients, your Business to Business (B2B) clients, and most importantly personal information related to your organization. Is going digital a risk work taking? How effective can safety procedures be in safeguarding from a privacy attack? And, what is the course of action in the case of a data breach? These are some of the questions being asked by curious organizations.

Lack of Information Pertaining to the Transformation: Believe it or not, but most organizations are still not educated about the perks of the digital transformation, and how they can properly implement it. The digital transformation is an amalgamation of numerous steps, which is why you need to take every aspect into consideration.

How to Overcome the Challenges to Digital Transformation, and Develop a Proven Strategy

Having talked about the complications present in being part of the digital transformation, we will now take a look at what one can do to develop a proven strategy. The five keys to creating a data driven culture in your organization are:

Have a Clear Vision

The first aspect of setting a data driven strategy is to have a concise vision that leads to successful data-centricity across all facets of your organization. This begins with the better understanding of data analysis patterns, since they are responsible for finding meaning out of your data. The most successful organizations take the help of data analysis tools to drive their digital efforts forward. A data analytics environment focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will eventually help extract insights from data.

Establish Data Accessibility

The main motive behind implementing a data driven ecosystem within your organization is to ensure that all the data you gather and collect from different sources is easily accessible to your entire workforce. Improved access for everyone will create a positive environment of collaboration, where your entire workforce will work towards achieving the goods of the digital transformation. This will ensure better co-ordination and advanced analysis. To make data accessible for all, you can have it stored on the cloud. The cloud is accessible to all, and would ensure that the data is safeguarded through different privacy features.

Interdepartmental Collaboration

People, not tools, act as the catalyst of change inside an organization. So your change will be incomplete without the incorporation of diverse teams with unique and accurate skill sets. Making use of multidisciplinary teams that are comprised of data scientists, engineers, developers, and analysts will help create a notion of positive change.

Well Maintained Data

Data maintenance is another very important aspect of the data revolution that shouldn’t be ignored. The data needs to be clean, and should be readily available for analysis when the need arises. Data cleansing and enrichment are practices that should be incorporated for proper management and maintenance of your data. You can also incorporate all of your data input in one location to ensure that it is easily accessible, and that management is easier.

Reward System for Encouraging Internal Competition

Encouraging some competition in your team will help bring forth the real spirit of the data driven culture. Your team members can be offered numerous rewards and other incentives to motivate them towards being involved in the data culture. If the company’s objective is to penetrate into new markets, then you can set incentives on how well your team is performing in this regard. Keep your data team motivated, and you may well reap the rewards.

Once you have implemented these five key factors for creating a data driven culture, you can start reaping the rewards of the digital data transformation. Remember that extracting meaningful insight is one of the major parts of this transformation, and you should be focused more on this than anything else. A data driven culture will help you extract insights from data, while being truly part of the digital transformation.

For more insights on why you need a data-driven culture, you can register yourself for the MicroStrategy Webinar.

Ronald helps data driven companies generating business value with best of breed solutions and a hands-on approach.
He has been recognized as one of the top 10 global influencers by DataConomy for predictive analytics, and by Klout for Data Science, Big Data, Business Intelligence and Data Mining and is guest author on leading Big Data sites, is speaker/chairman/panel member on national and international webinars and events and runs a successful series of webinar on Big Data and on Digital Transformation.
He has been active in the data (process) management domain for more than 18 years, has founded multiple companies and is now director at a Data Consultancy company, leader in Big Data & data process management solutions.
Broad interest in big data, data science, predictive analytics, business intelligence, customer experience and data mining.
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